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Loading...Surprise! Bankers Oppose A Robin Hood Tax Proposal
A recent campaign and website to drum up support for a “Robn Hood tax” on the billions of dollars’ worth of financial transactions that focus on currency speculation apparently has at least a few rich bankers worried. This inventive public campaign ad in England, featuring the marvelous actor Bill Nighy as a rich cat trying to scoff at the tax, is both revealing and amusing:
The Guardian found that the website owners were surprised and disheartened when they received thousands of online votes against the idea of the tax in a period of just a few minutes, until: “After a bit more investigation, though, the unlikely backlash against the rob-the-rich plan – almost 5,000 no votes against the Robin Hood tax within 20 minutes – turned out to emanate from just two computer servers, one of which was registered to the investment bank Goldman Sachs.” The Telegraph reports that a Goldman spokesman confirmed that they just received the information and “are investigating fully.”
The Robin Hood Tax website reset the counter after the vote onslaught, and as of Monday the public votes are running nearly 10 to one in favor of the tax.
Named for the late economist James Tobin, the tax would be levied on international monetary transactions in the hopes of both stabilizing the international currency market by discouraging speculation, and generating a huge amount of money that could be devoted to the promotion of international peace and development. Tobin originally proposed the tax not to raise money for society’s benefit, but to put the brakes on the rampant growth of the currency trading market. According to the Robin Hood tax website, when Tobin first proposed the tax 30 years ago, daily currency transactions amounted to $18 billion; it is now $3 trillion a day. The vast majority of the trades (an estimated 80%) is speculation, or betting on changes in the currency rates by entities that have no intention of actually taking delivery of the currency, or any good or service.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz favors a tax on these financial transactions, explaining, “A transaction tax is designed to tackle high-frequency activity for which it is hard to find any societal benefit.” The challenges are in the implementation and effective distribution of monies collected. But those barriers can only be surmounted if the tax is implemented.
Last week British Prime Minister Gordon Brown predicted that a global bank tax could become a reality, potentially at next June’s G20 summit. When Brown brought up the tax at last November’s G20 meeting in Scotland, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner emphatically stated that the U.S. would not support it. This new attempt to get speculators to give back to the society that has provided them with wealth and opportunity offers a new avenue to improve education, health, and poverty worldwide. That is certain to bring out a lot of opposition.
Read more: bill nighy, currency trade, global economy, gordon brown, politics, robin hood tax, tobin tax
Photo: Petrovich9 via iStockphoto
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+ add your ownBottom line(s), it seems that an equitable division of wealth would be in proportion to one's contributions to the greater society. Can anyone really claim to be even 20 times more valuable to society than the average person, much less 500 or so times?
High interest rates, along with the ability to manipulate others, mean that money value is not proportional to the actual dollars, but the seed for a fortune.
"You cannot currently send a star to Seth because you have done so within the last week."
Also, I meant to say "pay scale," not "pain scale." LOL
"If there is no assistance from the government, in the form of food stamps, public housing, Medicaid/Medicare, etc., then they may not even be able to get by, much less thrive or advance in life.
In the case of the $10,000 earner, everything they earn is going right back into the economy because they must spend it. Therefore, their full earnings help businesses make money to pay their employees, who in turn will spend it with other businesses, further stimulating the economy, and the cycle will continue.
If you were to cut taxes on the wealthy, because they had no need to spend beyond their needs, this could allow them to keep even more money, so it therefore would not stay in circulation where it can stimulate the economy, leading to a recession such as we have seen; when people stop spending, the economy stagnates or even declines.
The high taxes on the wealthy may not seem fair, but the alternative is even less fair to more people as there are many more in the lower and middle classes.
The government should represent the majority, not the elite."
As corporations, as well as wealthy individuals, continue to wield more and more influence, it should be perfectly reasonable to at least try to level the playing field by taxing excessive wealth in order to help pay for the services that stand to benefit others less fortunate while remembering that poverty is rarely, if ever, a choice.
I apologize in advance for my plagiarism, but since I'm plagiarizing myself, it shouldn't be all bad, right? In any case, I posted the following under another topic, but I find it relevant here, as well:
"As far as taxing the rich, remember that there are services all of us need, such as infrastructure, and services that help those in need, such as social services.
While you may belittle the need-based services, think of it this way:
If someone makes $100,000 a year, even if they're taxed as 50%, they still have $50,000 left for their life expenses: car, house, food, utilities, etc. They can probably cover their expenses with some money left to save, so they get to maintain some level of wealth. Likewise for someone making $1,000,000 a year; at 50%, they would get to keep $500,000 of that, which is more than enough to get by, and because this is enough to cover their needs, and probably some wants, they can stop spending without needing to spend everything they have.
If someone makes only $10,000 a year, even if you allow them to keep everything they earned without taxing them, the costs of living tend to be so high that they may not even be able to cover everything they need, so they may go hungry, they may not be able to afford to pay for health care or even for the medical care covered by it if they have coverage, they may lose their house, if not forced to rent in the first place.
continued...
Nothing can compensate for the thievery perpetrated by the rich bankers, but this would be a start.
Why the assumption that everyone poor is lazy? Many "poor and lazy" work much harder than any of the rich ever have or ever could. In fact, the harder you work, the lower your pain scale. Go figure.
There are at least two big misleading ideas under the phrase "Many rich individuals grew up in poverty. Why should they be penalized for their success by making them pay more taxes than the lazy, dull guys?" The first is
that taxes are penalizing somebody which is rich - they will also get benefits from the taxes which will pay for
health care, schools and so on... The second is that lazy people has the right live as well, plainly!
Many rich individivuals grew up in poverty. Why should they be penalized for their success by making them pay more taxes than the lazy, dull guys?
I agree with Shevlin R, $20 is not $20. There are many people who are only just making ends meet and that is without being able to take care of all their needs and forget about their wants.
This comes under the heading of :YOU CAN'T BLAME A CAT FOR SAYING MEOW!
#1 In the article above you mention that the 5,000 immediate negative votes against this Robin Hood Tax were traced back to Goldman Saks.
#2 Later Gaither claimed that the U.S. said "no" to the same Tax.
CONCLUSION: Gaither is an old Goldman-Saks boy! As are Sommmers and most of Obama's financial adivsors! Surprise, Surprise!
Anything that doesn't beneift the super rich is a no-no with this adminstration - witness the defeat of the Crash-Down bill that would have allowed homeoweners to renegotiate their mortgages - by a mere 2 Democratic votes - 2 Democrats were misssing that day!!! Bailout, healt care, financial reform, global warming, etc. all go by the wayside - it might upset the rich and their puppets - Congress!
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